Some films inspire people to do things. At their best, they can inspire deep feelings, heartfelt actions, and art beyond the film itself.

Beyond the Lost World might actually accomplish some of these things, but not because it sets out to do so. No, it might inspire feelings, but they'll probably be rage or depression. It might inspire actions, such as throwing your copy of the film on a roaring fire. And it might inspire art, but only because a viewer will think “Jesus, I can make something better than this movie.”

You could deconstruct this entire film as an object lesson of what not to do, but I'll just hit some highlights. The film is divided into segments. Each part consists of a lot of nothing happening in the woods. To make things worse, there is a time travel plot device that forces us to re-watch the same nothing that just happened- sometimes over and over. Each part consists of people I can't really call actors with a straight face, doing boring shit in the woods and occasionally being battered by the special effects. You won't care about anything these people do or say.

There are a couple of fight scenes. I call them that with undue kindness. The “CIA's best assassin” (who is a balding long-haired guy shaped like a sausage and dressed like a homeless person) shows up, and utters lines like “I only take my jacket off to do two things: make love and kick alien butt!”. Then he shows us his amazing skills, which I'd rate somewhere around a white belt in Karate. Maybe a yellow belt if you're extremely kind.

The special FX, if you dare to call them that, are on par with movies like Birdemic. You've got bad rubber alien masks, fake bats on strings, laser beam MS Paint doodles, and a guy that bleeds gummy worms. I'm not making that up. Gummy worms. Plus animatronic or clay dinosaurs (I can't even tell which), and a shitload of stock footage.

And of course, there's a twist ending. No, I'm not going to tell you what it is. If you want to know, you'll have to earn it with your own sweat and tears by watching this film. Don't take that as encouragement, though- you really don't want to see Beyond the Lost World. Even if you're a young filmmaker trying to learn how to make a film on $5, you can find many superior examples. In fact, just go out and shoot something with your friends over a weekend using your phone. It'll probably be better than this junk.